Of course there is the fact that all of the US intelligence agencies agree that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election.

The same ones that insisted there were WMDs in Iraq?

All the more reason to believe them now. They would not want to suffer the embarrassment of getting it wrong twice.

And there's also the mountain of evidence found by Facebook, Twitter and others in the private sector, several European intelligence agencies, with concurrence by a number of other US lawmakers, Republican and Democrat.

I also have to wonder what benefit there is in bristling at the idea that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 US election. Surely it's better to err on the side of defending democracy?

It depends enormously on what they actually tried to do. Buy ads on social media? It's pretty hard for the Americans to complain about that. Hack into voting machines and change the results? Okay, that's an act of war.

Frankly I'm mostly ambivalent about the ads but there are laws in America that could be interpreted to say that's illegal.

Interesting view

“"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros

"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."

Yep. The Russians have been doing it for years. During the Cold War, they sided with Leftist parties not just in the US but also in Europe. They were ideologically closer. For example, the ACLU was founded by Commies encouraged by Moscow.